Hide and Go Shriek



AKA: Close Your Eyes and Pray

A group of eight friends – Judy, David, John, Bonnie, Randy, Kim, Shawn and Melissa – have all just graduated from high school and plan to celebrate the dawn of their adulthood with the teenage tradition of a PAR-TAY! WHOO! They just wanna play some games, eat, drink and have a good (and sexy!) time. The location of their little shindig? The furniture store that John’s father owns. Only daddy dearest doesn’t know about their plans. So the group sneaks in and hides before the store closes so that no one knows they’re there. They plan on cleaning up afterwards anyway, so they’ll get to have their fun and the old man won’t be none the wiser. It’s a win-win.

Except – Dun Dun Dun! – it turns out they’re not alone. A fact that becomes very apparent during their rousing game of hide and go seek (yes, really), when half of their party suddenly disappears. But what could be going on? Are John and the others just playing an elaborate prank? Has the ex-con John’s dad hired and let live downstairs gone off his rocker? Or is there some crazed lunatic running around the store slowly picking them off one by one? (Hint: it’s that last one.)



I’ve been trying to figure out a theme for October for a couple weeks now, but nothing I watched really inspired me. So for this month I figured I’d take inspiration from Halloween itself (the film, not the holiday) and go back to slasher basics. So this month I’m going to be watching a lot of (I suspect very horny) teens/young adults getting attacked by various nut-jobs.

First up, Hide and Go Shriek, a late, low-budget American entry into the genre from 1988. Overall, the film ends up being just…okay. Its biggest claim to fame seems to be that it was directed by Skip Schoolnik, who does a lot of production work now, but also directed shows like Angel and edited the TV versions of Halloween and Halloween II. And the movie also stars Sean Kanan in his film debut, who some might recognize from his work on The Karate Kid Part III, Cobra Kai, or his various soap opera appearances. Point is, the film doesn’t do much to stand out and ends up being a rather mid-level slasher. But it does have a few things going for it, even if it has its ups and downs.



For starters, the movie is actually fairly well written. Most of the dialogue makes sense, there aren’t any particularly cringy lines, and, for the most part anyway, our pool of victims aren’t complete idiots, and act accordingly in most situations. In fact, they’re actually pretty competent for a slasher film. Yes, as expected, there are a couple dumb decisions to be had, and there’s more crying and wailing from the gals than I would like (get it together, ladies!). But once they realize that something is very, VERY wrong they don’t spit up (in fact they hold on to one another to make sure that they don’t get split up), they arm themselves with whatever they can find, and when the killer does finally attack them, they all attack him back. So good for them for not being the typical group of useless victims that go screeching into the night.


Oh, and quite a few of them end up surviving, so that’s surprising.

The downside to this though, is that most of the characters are either bland, or just… Well, they’re pretty unlikable, so you really don’t end up caring about any of them. They mostly just fall into the “random horny-toad” category, with various levels of “jock” thrown in to mix things up, but other than that there really isn’t all that much to differentiate them. I doubt you’ll even remember most of their names by the end. So it’s kind of like a “Oh, that chick’s dead? Well, what a shame. Wait, which one was she again? Eh, doesn’t matter. Next!” situation. Not that that’s a ding against the actors. They were actually pretty decent for a low-budget slasher. Maybe even a little better than some more well known series, in fact (I’m looking at you, Friday the 13th.) It’s really not their fault all their characters were really dull.


Oh, good. It’s Max Lack of Headroom. Lovely.

Another upside is that the pacing is also much better than expected. Sadly, we are of course subjected to a lot of scenes of people wandering around, thanks in part to the stupid hide and go seek game the movie is partially centered around. But, those moments aren’t too long, and they’re interspersed with several deaths and other creepy moments, so the plodding points aren’t too bad. Not perfect maybe, but at least the movie never goes for too long without something happening.



As for said “things” going on, that’s where the movie runs into a bit of a hiccup. Cause, see, I said this was a low-budget film, and what’s the best way to save money on your movie? By not turning on any bloody lights, that’s how! Once the employees lock up the store for the night, 99% of the rest of the movie is basically plunged into darkness. Now, the plot explains this away as the characters not wanting to draw attention to themselves, because, you know, the whole breaking and entering thing. Because, turning on the lights would alert the cops and clearly bungle their evening. But this also means that, for the most part, you don’t see a lot of things very clearly. Which isn’t to say they didn’t light the film. Because they did. If they WANT you to see something, you’ll see it, don’t worry. It’s just that most everything else in the scene is marred by shadow. This does a couple things: 1) obviously you can’t see the finer details of some of the kills, which I’m sure was at least a little intentional, and 2) it kinda gives the movie a bit of a surreal vibe. Because the characters are clearly visible, but many of the backgrounds are dark and obscure. And, you know what, I gotta give them some credit, because they do a good job of using that darkness to their advantage by just giving you a glimpse of the creepy shit in the background. But for most of the versions you’re going to find online and streaming services, it’s still going to be way, WAY too dark for most people. And, by god, if you’re going to watch this, you’re going to want to see all the killer’s weird dancing and the numerous creepy mannequins hanging out in the background.



Oh, have I mentioned the mannequins? I feel like I should, because those things are everywhere in this movie. EVERYWHERE. And it’s really weird at first, especially when the movie gives you some BS excuse about John’s dad wanting the furniture displays to feel more “lived in”, yet there are way too many of these things sitting around to just be used for displays. I seriously wonder where his dad got these things and what the hell is wrong with him, because there are SO many of them in the store that you could probably fit about a dozen of them in each furniture display and still have some to spare. Yet they kind of grew on me, because I realized they were adding to the increasingly creepy vibe the movie was giving out. And I know they were 100% intentional, because they fit into the whole motif of the killer, who not only kills his victims, but also strips their dead bodies, and then goes around wearing their clothing and taunting the others…while giggling. And remember, this is all happening in the shadows, so yeah it’s weird, but it also ends up being SUPER disturbing.


Yeah, he’s just…. It’s really creepy.

The real downside for a lot of slasher fans though, is that Hide and Go Shriek really doesn’t have a lot of gore. Most of the deaths either aren’t gory at all (drowning), or they ARE gory (impalement), but the gore happens just out of frame. So you know what happens, but you don’t get to see the “good stuff.” I can kind of understand why, due to their limited funds and their apparent dedication to spending most of the money they did have on excessive amounts of hairspray and cheesy 80s outfits for the cast. But the general lack of inspiration here is a bit of a downer. EXCEPT for the very last kill, that involves a head and an elevator, which you not only 100% get to see, but is also extremely well done. Considering the rest of the movie, I never would have thought they’d even try that, let alone pull it off so well. It’s so good that it almost makes me want to recommend the movie to all slasher fans just for those few, brief seconds. It’s that impressive.


I’ll just let you use your imagination to guess what happens next.

The other thing that I kinda waffle on regarding the film is the ending. Because like a lot of other elements of this movie it’s… It’s just weird, dude. This isn’t the type of slasher where you can try to guess who the killer is. Yeah, the movie tries to set up the ex-con downstairs, but they were clearly trying way too hard to make you think it’s him, that you know it can’t be him. But it won’t be anyone else you could possibly suspect either (though they are referenced in a throw-away line), so don’t even try. Their presence completely comes out of left field. As does their motivation and their tenuous (at best!) connection to the story. And let me tell you right now, certain groups are going to HATE the killer’s “big reveal” due to the horrible stereotypes the film used, and I 100% would agree with them, because what they did was painfully, cringingly *deep groan, hide your face in your hands* levels of bad. But at the same time it’s also so random and just…bizarre, that I can’t completely dislike it, either. It just feels too weird for me to hate, even though I do feel some secondhand embarrassment for the filmmakers for even thinking about it in the first place.


Sigh

So, while I kinda liked it and it has some points in its favor – like the creepy villain, the dark atmosphere and that ONE good death – I think Hide and Go Shriek only ends up being an average slasher. I don’t think it does anything egregiously bad, but other than that one death it also doesn’t do too much to try to stand out from the crowd either. So if forced to choose, I’d put it squarely in the middle of whatever theoretical slasher scale you could come up with. That said, thanks to the decent pacing it’s still a pretty quick, easy watch. So if you’re a slasher fan it’s probably worth at least one viewing. But if you’re looking for top-tier stuff, know that while parts of it are entertaining, this ain’t it (Unless your enjoyment of slashers is solely based on nudity. In which case you’ll have a bit of fun with this one.).

Hide and Go Shriek is available on a variety of streaming services.

Hide and Go Shriek is also available on DVD and Bluray. Just know that both currently appear to be out of print in certain territories, so that might be a bit challenging.

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